Army returns remains of 9 Indigenous children who died at boarding school over a century ago

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) — The remains of nine more Native American children who died at a notorious government-run boarding school in Pennsylvania over a century ago were disinterred from a small Army cemetery and returned to families, authorities said Wednesday.

The remains were buried on the grounds of the Carlisle Barracks, home of the U.S. Army War College. The children attended the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and forced to assimilate to white society as a matter of U.S. policy.

The Office of Army Cemeteries said it concluded the remains of nine children found in the graves were “biologically consistent” with information contained in their student and burial records. The remains were transferred to the children’s families. Most have already been reburied on Native lands, Army officials said Wednesday.

Workers also disinterred a grave thought to have belonged to a Wichita tribe child named Alfred Charko, but the remains weren’t consistent with those of a 15-year-old boy, the Army said. The remains were reburied in the same grave, and the grave was marked unknown. Army officials said they would try to locate Alfred’s gravesite.

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